Opinion: Make N.J. alimony law reflect real world

Divorce is never a happy experience. It is often emotionally charged, and the litigants’ clarity of thinking and judgment are often clouded. It’s all the more reason for there to be definite guidelines so that both parties know what the future may hold if their marital or civil union does not work out.

Last month, Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation, S-2151, that strengthens the enforceability of premarital and pre-civil union agreements. Essentially, the revised law limits the discretion of the courts to overturn prenuptial agreements, a practice that had become all too common in New Jersey.

Until now, family courts had free rein to overturn fully executed prenuptial contracts based on circumstances that changed in the many years after the contract was signed; for example, buying a house, then having a court change the previously-agreed-to purchase price 10 or 20 years later. The Legislature’s intent was to support fairness and provide structure to court decisions to avoid protracted and unnecessary litigation.

In that same vein, the Legislature needs to act on the next phase of common-sense matrimonial law reform — alimony. As gender roles have changed, so too, must the laws that were enacted in a different era.

Pending state legislation in both the Assembly and Senate (A-3909/S-2750) seeks to add certainty and closure to both parties in a divorce. The legislation would eliminate the "life sentence" of permanent ex-spousal support, and establish guidelines for alimony based on the length of marriages. The bills also would change the definition of short-term, moderate-term and long-term marriages.

Almost as important, the reform guidelines would curtail the ambiguous and inconsistent interpretation by judges that is commonplace in New Jersey. The New Jersey judiciary’s discretion is so broad that attorneys from other states seek to try cases in our state in order to increase the likelihood of substantial alimony support for their clients.

In many cases, litigants find themselves liquidating their entire net worth, including retirement and college savings. They must go deeply into debt to pay experts and litigation expenses, or to support obligations that, if unpaid, would result in incarceration. The end result is often that an alimony payer takes an attorney’s advice to accept a settlement offer, good or bad, because not enough money remains to pay legal counsel.

The groups New Jersey Women for Alimony Reform (NJWAR) and New Jersey Alimony Reform (NJAR) propose modest reforms to New Jersey's alimony laws to reflect the realities of modern society. The reforms proposed in the pending bills already are the law in Massachusetts and other states, and are also the unofficial, but haphazardly applied, guideline in New Jersey.

NJWAR and NJAR propose modernizing our state’s laws to promote fair mediation and discourage prolonged litigation that serves no other purpose than to enrich matrimonial attorneys.

The madness needs to stop. As gender roles have evolved, society has come to expect our laws to evolve as well. The time has come for real alimony reform.

Thomas Leustek is the founder and president of New Jersey Alimony Reform, a group that believes the state's current alimony laws are antiquated. Neither A-3909 nor S-2750 have been scheduled for hearings in their respective houses' judiciary committees.

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